I just read Dear Mark: How
Are You Training These Days? I try to break
down my training in a similar way to Mark. I have my training, hard strenuous
exercises to strengthen my body for the demands of life. Then I have play,
which is fun, carefree movement, be it working on my parkour movement or tag with
my girlfriends kids. Finally, I have rest, which is often the most nebulous
part of my training. Some days I am resting and working in my garden, doing yoga
or straight vegging. I don't always have a set sequence of days that I do any
of these activities. I cycle through these more organically. When I attend
training with Parkour
Horizons I do what they do. When I am don't train with
them I do what feels right for that day.
My training days can vary. Yesterday I wanted to
lift, however, my schedule didn't allow me to. When I do lift I spend about an
hour in the "gym." I can take as much as an 15 to 20 minutes warming
up. Then I hit hard with a series of compound lifts that incorporate the whole
body. When I can't get to a weight set I do either body weight exercises or
speed work. For body weight stuff I fall back on my parkour training. I use
lots of quadrupedal movement and classic movements like squats, push ups and
pull ups. For speed work I was doing lots of sprints until recently. For
me sprints are 400 meters or less. These days I have been working up to longer
distance. I know the science, especially in the paleo sphere, points to shorter
distance for optimum health, but I have been testing my metal with mile repeats.
This is one of those "training for the demands of life." I share a car
with my dad, this means that about two times a month I need to get across town
in a car sort of time period, but all I have are feet. Therefore, I have been
doing longer track work outs. These are things I haven't done since
high school, but more on that some other time.
I work hard so I can play hard. For me a lot of my
play is movement and flow based or playing with the kids at the park. I work
mostly on dexterity and proprioception. I try to make awkward things graceful.
I work on things that challenge or scare me. Or sometimes I just try to
remember what it was like to really believe the ground was lava.
Some days after rocking for a few days, my body
tells me I need to chill out for a day. I try to vegg out for a day. However,
that never works completely. I usually take some long walks. Sometimes, on those
walks I find a big thing to carry around like a log or a rock, movnat style. I always foam roll, in fact, I do
that almost every day. I have been getting back into yoga. I used to do lots of yoga,
but I quit when I got some knee pain two years ago. However, I have been being
careful with it and trying to regain lots of mobility. I have always been
really flexible cause of a genetic condition. For a long time I counted on that
to carry me through any mobility I needed. Recently I started noticing some
lapse in that area of my movement. More on this some other time.
This is what my training looks
like these days. I train to play and I play to live. I listen to what my body
needs. I give it sweat when it needs sweat. I give it food when its hungry. I
give it laughter when it needs joy. I give it rest when it's tired. I am off to
foam roll.
